Twelve Drawings

One Mark at a Time

In case you are wondering, these are hand-drawn pen and ink illustrations. Someone probably has a computer that can duplicate this stipple and hatching effect, but I am patient enough to continue by hand.

Pen and ink drawing have been a staple of popular art for centuries. I hope the artform will always endure—despite the advent of new computer software. There is a rather timeless quality about pen and ink drawings that can blur the lines between historical periods. That timelessness is an effect I deliberately try to achieve. Why? Becauase if I had one wish, it would be to help the younger reader see beyond the antique-sounding vocabulary found in recovery literature like the Big Book. Within that "grandfatherly" writing can be found very specific, definite, and practical instructions for those who wish to be freed from alcholic and addictive insanity. May you find them now, if you need them.

Progress Not Perfection
I use 9 x 12" paper and a medium Waterman fountain pen—like the one seen in the drawing called "Difference"*. You will probably notice pencil sketch marks here and there on the drawings. I try to erase them because they are distracting to some people. To be honest, I draw mostly for God and thankfully He has the job of being perfect, not me.

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*TRIVIA: As far as I know, "Difference" is the only drawing that could not have been drawn back when the Big Book was published in 1939. In that drawing, a stalk of broccoli is being held several inches above a photograph. In that photograph is the image of an exploding atomic bomb...a sight the world did not see until 1945. It's okay if you thought the photograph shows a stalk of cauliflower instead—my beloved late mother thought that, too.

ARTIST'S COMMENTS

Sometimes, the definitions I find in my 1934 Websters Dictionary come as a complete surprise. I love it when that happens because it opens a new door into understanding exactly what Bill W may have meant when he used that specific word. (It is worth noting that Bill was no slouch at writing—having grown up attending Vermont private schools and later studying law in Brooklyn, NY.) However, the Webster definition for the word "realize" is not particularly surprising.

Realize v. To convert from the imaginary or fictitious into the actual.

Before I attended any Twelve Step meetings, my understanding of recovery was based on what others said or on whatever I imagined. For example, I always heard recovery meetings were a perfect example of a "self-help group", where people could work on improving themselves. I also heard Twelve Step groups were a classic type of "support group" where people with a similar problem could find sympathy and understanding from others.

Those were my impressions. Now that I have been attending weekly meetings for more than a decade, I question the truth of my early assumptions. (A reminder here that I am sharing my own point of view, and others would describe their experiences differently.)

I no longer believe that I got much "self-help" from the Twelve Steps. While addicted, I spent most of my time helping myself to everything, but that just made matters worse. I was exhausted from helping myself and I still was not sober. For me, "self-help" was a fictitious phrase—my help would need to come from outside of myself.

I personally do not think I got sober because of a "support group". The group did offer important sympathy and understanding—in fact they did so for several years but it produced no results. I never did get lasting sobriety until I worked the Twelve Steps and had a spiritual awakening. In the end, I needed help that no one—no human—could provide. Old timers in the program have wisecracked, "You can attend PTA meetings for years, but that won't make you a parent. You must take other steps." If I imagined that I could get sober by simply surrounding myself with supportive people, I was wrong.

The Twelfth Promise is: "We will suddenly REALIZE that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves."

Realizing something requires that I convert my imaginary and fictitious expectations into something actual. The sooner I gave up on finding "self-help", the sooner I could begin to earnestly seeking help from a Higher Power—I myself could not do both. That Higher Power needed to be something more than a "support group" of other humans like myself. Until I opened myself up to that possibility, I could never find it.

I notice that this Twelfth Promise is the final promise....hinting that it may come true later than the others. We all work the Steps at our own speed, for our own motives, and with our own understanding (or misunderstandings). I know that was true for me. But only much later did I come to realize just how much God had done for me that I had been powerless to do.

I am not against "self-help" or "support groups". But I am grateful for what happened once I stopped relying solely on them and worked the Twelve Steps exactly as I saw them in the literature. I entered the program with a mind full of imaginary and fictitious expectations. Once I let them go and let God work, sobriety came within reach one day at a time.

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My illustration for this Promise is both childish and serious. In it, a boy is about to throw a paper airplane. The folded paper bears elaborate diagrams and images depicting fanciful flying machines. In the background is an open book resting on a picnic table. What is left unspoken is that the boy has grown tired of reading about imaginary flying machines and has torn out a page and folded it into an actual flying device. I can identify with his decision to move from the unreal to the real. It took me years and years to make that same decision...some call it "hitting rock bottom". But once I stopped living in an imaginary and fictitious world, I was able to enjoy my real life again.

FEAR

What is there to say about fear? Bill W. wrote on page 67 of the AA Big Book: "This short word somehow tourches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. But didn't we, ourselves, set the ball rolling?"

He concludes the paragraph with this sentence: "Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble."

In two swift strokes, Bill suggests that fear 1) brings trouble upon us in ways we cannot see, and 2) can never be justified. That second part is based upon the comparison to stealing—something that can never be justified.

In 1934, Webster's Dictionary offered this definition:

Fear n. - Painful emotion marked by alarm, extreme awe, or anticipation of danger.

I had to agree with all of those extreme terms. But a second reading revealed something. The painful emotion is caused by other emotions (alarm and extreme awe) or by a thought (anticipation of danger). None of these are the same thing as a true and factual danger.

The exact things that trigger emotions and thoughts differ from person to person. I have seen people react to a charging grizzly bear with calculated courage and I have seen a friend thrash in screams of terror because an old cobweb brushed their cheek. 

Thus, my drawing includes nothing specific to be afraid of. It shows a hand reeling in terror for unseen reasons. The charms on the bracelet suggest some possible causes....home....money....family....food....prestige. But regardless of its causes, fear changes everything if we let it.

The text says fears "will leave us." That is true for me. But it is also true that fears can and do return. I can successfully rid my life of fears today by working the Twelve Steps. But I see nothing in any of the literature that promises more than 24 hours of sobriety. Which means I will face tomorrow with the same vulnerability to....and successful tools for avoiding...Fear itself.

OUTLOOK

Promise 9 - Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

[NOTE: Please read the footnote. It gives important information about the inspiration for this drawing.]

I attended years of Twelve Steps meetings without getting sober. The length of time was largely my fault; I was only halfway trying and frankly didn't have much faith the Twelve Steps would work. But, like many people who arrive at a Twelve Step meeting, I did not have even one single other option.

I finally got solid help in working the Twelve Steps in the "old fashioned" way originally practiced in the 1930s. Somewhere around Step Nine, I experienced something remarkable. My whole attitude and outlook upon life really did change—precisely as described in the Ninth Promise. That should not have suprised me because the Twelve Promises (which are read at nearly every meeting) are said to come true during the Ninth Step. I experienced those Promises exactly when the Big Book said I would and still I experience them today when I work the Twelve Steps.

The changes described in the Promises are difficult for me to describe, because a spiritual epiphany was involved and those are typically difficult for anyone to describe in understandable terms. I will confine my comments to one single aspect of my experience, in hopes of making my point. 

Before my Ninth Step experience, I read the literature like I would read any book. There were characters, descriptions of events, and discussions of various ideas. Blah blah blah. It was only after my spiritual experience that I came to view the book as being remarkable in any way. Every page had a new resonance in its language. Simple sentences suddenly seemed very profound. Tired old phrases like: "We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it" (p.83) or "God is, or He isn't." (p.53) suddenly cast long shafts of light into my dark tomb of despair.

I am glad I experienced the Ninth Promise of a new outlook, for the obvious reason that I then experienced sobriety for the first time in the program. Beyond that, I felt an urgent desire to help other people see what I saw and feel what I experienced.

My urge to make these drawings reminded me of an infamous period in Bill Ws sobriety when he raced from saloon to saloon, feverishly trying to share this "hot flash" enlightenment experience with others. His biographers say that Bill W had no luck carrying his Message this way, and I had no luck either. The more breathlessly I described my vivid experience, the more deadpan was the reaction I saw in others. My family members listened for as long as they could tolerate, but eventually even they had to gently but firmly notify me that I must find something else to talk about.

How could they not see what I saw? I felt alone with my epiphany and depressed that I could not express it adequately. 

Soon after that, I came across an interview with a crime novelist*. To learn more about crime, the writer spent a day in a police car on routine patrol. The writer wasn't at all nervous because the patrol was in a nice neighborhood that the writer already knew well. But this day was to be very different for him. 

The experienced policemen pointed out little details that he had never noticed before. Things like unhurried people who always happened to saunter into the same alley whenever the patrol car drove past. Or a woman who never left her perch in a certain upper window. Or a door that was always left propped open by a different piece of cardboard each time they drove past throughout the day. Or a parking space that, despite a shortage of other available parking, was forever empty.

The police officers pointed out the everyday criminal activities that most people—including the writer—would normally overlook. Once they were pointed it out, the writer gained the ability to spot the drug dealers hovering near the alleys, the lookouts posted in their windows, the money pickup points, and the parking space which notoriously violent criminals kept reserved for their own personal use. It opened his eyes to a neighborhood he only thought he knew. He had passed these same scenes every day in the past, but he had never really noticed them before. Being a professional writer, he found his own way to describe the epiphany he experienced. (I can only paraphrase the words he used to describe his new awareness):

"Imagine you are in a helicopter flying above the ocean. The blue water stretches uniformly in all directions and pretty soon, the view becomes very boring to you. Then imagine the helicopter hovers down to the water's surface and safely drops you into the water so you can go snorkeling. Imagine the moment you dip your facemask under that monotonous blue water and WHOOM!!!....you suddenly see ten thousand colors and shapes and coral and fish that were invisible to you just a moment ago. You look around and realize there are different species and landscapes in every direction. Imagine how that would change everything that you THOUGHT you knew before. Before you went under water, you thought the entire ocean was the same no matter where you looked. Now you realize that no two square INCHES of the ocean are the same when viewed more deeply."*

That writer put into words how the Ninth Promise had affected me. At some level of my mind, body, or spirit, I was given a way to see below the surface of my monotonous life. My earlier Fourth Step inventory had allowed me to see and label every species of resentment, fear, shame, guilt, and remorse that I had been overlooking before. By taking the actions found in later steps, I could exchange despair for now hope. My Twelve Step work resulted in a wonderful view of things, but one that I could not easily share with others until they had walked the same path as me.

I try to make drawings that reflect my insights into the Twelve Steps. My Ninth Promise illustration is inspired by the idea expressed in that radio interview. I made use of an imaginary woman to dramatize the moment when I first realized I was surrounded by Grace in otherwise hopeless-looking situation. In the illustration, the woman has landed a plane on a desert shore and is seen as she wades or swims into the nearby surf. Leaving the vast sand dunes behind her, she tentatively dips her face mask into the rippling water. The featureless surface of the waves is stripped away from view, revealing luminous aquatic plants and a teeming world of darting silvery fish. The world has not been changed at all in that moment, but her insights into the world are forever expanded.

My real life experience wasn't as dramatic as THAT. But you get the idea. After I worked the Twelve Steps of recovery EVERY DAY for as long as it took, I began to look at my home, work, neighborhood, and world very differently. I don't expect you to believe me just because I have written it here. I do hope you find your own special pathway into the world you already inhabit. Even if my world all goes away tomorrow, I am immensely grateful for having glimpsed its spiritual truths even once.

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*TRIVIA: I am not sure it is honest to swipe a drawing idea from a radio interview, but that is what I did. I heard a Public Radio show in which a writer was being asked about his craft. In making one of his points, he described an imaginary scenario very similar to the one I used in this drawing. I have searched the web and cannot yet locate the interview. I apologize for not being able to properly credit even this paraphrase. If you recognize him or you ARE him, please send me a link to the interview at [email protected]. I want to ask your permission to use the exact quote and give you credit for your remarkable insight.

Interest in Our Fellows

Attending meetings involves spending time with one's "fellows"....fellow alcoholics, fellow drug addicts, fellow behavioral addicts, etc. I have heard some claim sitting in a Twelve Step meeting (without working the Steps) will produce lasting sobriety. Personally, I doubt it will. After all, simply sitting in a bar does not produce an alcoholic; it is the drinking done while there that produces the results. I suspect the same is true for recovery.

The only formal requirement for joining a Twelve Step meeting is "the desire to stop..." (drinking, drugging, or acting out on a behavioral addiction) "...and to help others to recover." Once you start attending a meeting, your personal level of interest may vary. Some people linger after the meeting is over, while others depart without delay. During the meeting itself, everyone shares an equal interest in the fellowship. Webster's Dictionary defines "interest" this way:

"Interest n. - a right, title, share, or participation in a thing."

In my experience, that definition is correct. The Twelve Step newcomer enjoys the same rights as the old-timers. The fact that long-sober people don't demand a higher status may puzzle the newcomers at first. These old-timers are not saints—they have learned that healthy interest among ANY members is helpful to all. Isolated and self-absorbed behavior seems to fuel addiction, and so recovering addicts instinctively encourage each other to become less isolated.

Addicts and alcoholics who do not gain interest in their fellows can slip back into isolation where their addiction lies waiting.

When I decided to draw this Promise, I felt a little lost. All of the depictions I envisioned seemed silly. As I often do, I prayed about it. Once again, a vision slowly formed. It was exactly what you see in the drawing. Several kids perched on the edge of a swimming pool. They are not swimming. They don't even appear to be talking. They are just BEING there.

Their differences are quite visible. They probably come from different families. They appear to be different ages. They arrived by different means. Yet there they sit together, instead of being alone.

Maybe recovery is complicated. But at moments like this, it seems fairly simple. We attend meetings. We work the Steps. We use sponsorship. We find that when we do these things, the Twelve Promises are realized.

I cannot say much more about my drawing than this: The way those kids look in that drawing matches the way I feel in a busy Twelve Step meeting. I am not in my old home, all alone. I am in a new home, surrounded by people who know me and care. Even if it is just one or two people, they are enough. Our Higher Power does the rest.

ARTIST'S COMMENTS

During my years in Twelve Step recovery, I have been a sponsor and I have been a sponsee (someone who receives sponsorship). This drawing is about both of those experiences, each from a different point of view. 

First, I was a sponsee. I often felt I was drowning. Literally. My dreams and thoughts were filled with large bodies of water or rising water. My sponsor didn't exactly rescue me. It's more accurate to say he kept calmly repeating, "Just work the Steps." When I listened, that kept my head above the imagined water.

Later, I became a sponsor. I was often dismayed to realize my sponsees were drowning before my eyes. My words and actions seemed ineffective in the face of the crisis I saw looming inside them. I could never save them using any thought or word or deed that sprang to my mind. 

It took a long time for me to realize why my sponsor was so helpful to me. It wasn't because he had the answer I needed. To the contrary, he would sometimes look at my situation and say, "Damn, that looks like an awful situation to be in." This man—someone I hardly knew— was not there to fix my situation. But he was willing to remain with me throughout my struggles.

As a sponsor myself, I found that simply being present was the most helpful thing I could do for my sponsees. I could listen to their situation, point out any applicable literature, and share my own experience. They seldom said, "Wow, that fixed it!". They would instead say, "Thanks for being there." That is an act I cannot define beyond answering some phone calls and meeting to talk about recovery. Whatever it is, it seems very important to recovery.

The promise that started with the words "No matter how far down the scale we have gone..." was a welcomed one. I knew I had gone far down the scale and was relieved to hear that my awful experience might have some redeeming value. Most people would never ever want to go as far down as I went. Never. Not ever.

And yet when a sponsee described an immeasurable moral abyss that they had fallen into, I found myself leaning toward them rather than leaning back. I would just let them talk, knowing it is very hard for them to admit how low they had sunk.

I can be there with them; "Being there". Able to listen with surprising ease because this low place is very familiar ground for me. I cannot really measure how far down the scale they have gone. It is a scale that has no units of measure. But I go there with them—"Being there"—until they touch the bottom.

In this way, the Promise has came true for me many times. No matter how far down the scale I have gone, I see how my experience benefits others.

So who is that guy on the ladder in my drawing? The one with the torn shirt and drooping hair, trying so hard to win an apparently unwinnable battle for the man who is sinking? That everyman is every sponsor I have ever had. He is doing more for me than I deserve—perhaps paying back his debt to a sponsor before him. He is not able to reach me, but he is able to "Be there" with me even at that depth of despair.

When the drawing was finished, I showed it with some pride to my father. He looked at the drawing for a long time, then candidly said, "I find this situation terribly hopeless." I asked him why. "Because they're not going to make it. The drowning guy is going to drown." I looked again at the drawing and saw what he didn't. It's not really sponsors who save sponsees. It is that certain Higher Power who we find at that bottom rung of the scale. The sponsor is there to share their hope, even when we think no one has been that far down the scale before us.

"I see it differently," I said to my father, "That sponsor still has not quite reached the bottom of his scale yet."

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I dedicate this drawing to my sponsors over the years, and to the Higher Power who I met through them.